VI 

 A MIDSUMMER NIGHT 



IT is one a.m. We are on the open chalk downs 

 under the stars, and twenty miles due south 

 from London as the crow flies. The low summer 

 moon, which has been but a few hours above the 

 horizon, is already sinking away in the south-west. 

 There is but little light, for the pale yellow beams 

 do not illuminate ; now, even before the dawn has 

 come, they are waning, and a ghostly air has settled 

 upon the almost invisible landscape. The northerly 

 breeze has come through the wood which meets 

 the sky in the foreground, and the aroma of leaves, 

 still in all their delicate summer freshness, lingers 

 on the night air. The distant bay of the watch-dog 

 comes over the hills, to be answered by another still 

 farther away, and yet now by another in the valley 

 below. But the sounds themselves are part of the 

 solitude ; they seem only to increase the silence. 



Under the clear sky the heavy dew has made the 

 grass dripping wet, and in the uncertain light it is 

 difficult to keep to the steep pathway through the 

 upland meadows. In the low ground below, where 

 the trees rise spectre-like through the mist, the 

 railway runs. It is but a few hours since the roar 



73 



